Fragment 85 Insight

Another vacation fragment, and 2/2 on touching rougher themes. This time I balanced it out with a lot more scenic wanderlust though.

If you properly recall, Geronimo and Arjuna had a little talk way back in the latter’s fragment about inner wolves. Obviously, that became the theme for this one to compliment Geronimo’s nature and history. He’s a very emotional figure in history, but his older days (as shown in FGO) were calmer even if he held on to some prejudices. I doubled down on this by having an inner-struggle within that he has to manage when certain stimuli are involved.

In this case, it’s the sad reality of the continued conditions of Indian Reservations, which is hardly a lie. Clearly flipping US politics into a three party chaotic slugfest isn’t reality, but that’s mostly a background matter for curiosity’s sake. The less we dive into politics the better, but in this case, it was a dare I took because of the high potential it has with Geronimo. In particular, giving him his own newfound purpose for staying beyond ‘minor singularities’ while also challenging his anger control.

I was more miffed with Geronimo’s lack of material compared to others, mainly because this is one servant I really, really wanted to portray appropriately. The Native Americans have been fairly misunderstood, and I won’t want to add to that with scattered belief. That said, Fate’s whole “beliefs influences the spirit” shtick (like Salieri) means I could feasibly get away with some leniency, but I try to avoid that when I can. I do what I can to paint every servant in a meaningful way that can allow them to further grow upon that and expand.

As a note with OCs revealed in vacation fragments: They’re like the ones in supplements. You very likely won’t see them again, but they could be referenced still. Them popping into Chaldea though is an easy guess though: Don’t count on it. Not everyone has to come to the building to be meaningful to someone.

Every location save for the restaurant was a real life depiction, and I’ve personally visited two of them. I’ll place links further down, but the Antelope Canyon depiction was actually partially inspired by what I went through. To access it, you must have a guide because it’s on the reservation, but the one I had was particularly fervent about laying down blame on the US government. Righteously so, he’s allowed to complain, but the tour was probably 40% about the canyon and 60% about reservation conditions. It was an eye-opening time, but for others who were not interested in learning and just wanted to see the place, that could have been one hell of a vacation ruining experience.

I didn’t want to replicate that sort of guilt-trip into the fic. I feel the discussion was already pretty dark and revealing as is.

Like I said before, vacation fragments often severely limit servant to servant interaction, so I try to limit them. They work wonders for ‘less social’ servants like Geronimo, and by that I mean those who don’t classify as a “social butterfly.” There will be yet another in the future.

Teaser: Super fragment, and it doesn’t feature any servant in particular. Many will pop into the limelight for this one, because the Vigil’s Elite “Vanguard” Platoon finally arrives, and it will create new friction, ease reservations, or both. Very likely both.